GRR.."train take the strain" is absolute Bollocks

Yesterday I spent a little over 10 hours on the train. Huh? I hear you say. Yes 10 hours plus. The only positives were the sketches I did of people on the train and about 2 chapters of some Actionscript tome. Other than that I was tired, fed up, frustrated and very unhappy. It all began with a plan to watch a show Master Sken had in Manchester. The doors would open at 1pm. Having some idea of how these things work I planned to leave London at 11 thus with a 3.30 travelling time I would be there at about 3 ish. Nice plan, not opening the show but, fashionably late enough to see, yet not get tired. In execution I left London at midday and arrived in Manchester at 5.55pm. Thanks to track repairs and a 30-50minute wait for a broken train. On the train the hot water system broke so they could not serve hot beverages so, no tea, no coffee. "We're sorry for the inconvenience they said". Unfortunately this really was my fault since this Virgin service had served up this experience to moi before. You should never take this train for any trip of some import, except you travel the previous day and love the feel of being in a cattletruck. To end this tale, having got to Manchester so late I estimated that a trip to the venue no longer made any sense considering the time, I had probably missed all the fights anyway so I reversed and did another 4 + hours on the train back to London.That whole "train take the strain" stuff is absolute Bollocks, I should have driven.